36 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 12 June 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

Its funny how this is sort of the end goal for some. They don't seem to understand that in asymetric balance not every mech should be equally good in everything, there should be roles that each mech is good in.

PGI was on the right track years ago with the quirk system boosting certain mechs to be really good with one weapon in particular, then they spread it out to general purpose quirks that only served to make mechs less diverse and make the mech that used to be the best at this one thing in particular no longer the best at anything. Which itself is very ironic considering PGI had swapped over to general purpose quirks to "expand build diversity" of the chassis but only really lead to that chassis' extinction and lower build diversity per match.

pgi likes to marginalize every feature it implements to the point where the existence of that feature is pointless. quirks, skill trees, ecm, tag, narc, lerms, psr, set of 8, flamers, the matchmaker, consumables, new mechs, the list goes on and on and on. its not a great way to build a game imho.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 June 2018 - 01:33 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

LordNothing, on 13 June 2018 - 01:32 PM, said:

pgi likes to marginalize every feature it implements to the point where the existence of that feature is pointless. quirks, skill trees, ecm, tag, narc, lerms, psr, set of 8, flamers, the matchmaker, consumables, new mechs, the list goes on and on and on. its not a great way to build a game imho.

I always wondered why PGI was so into HUGE SWEEPING BLANKET NERFS when they had already put inplace a huge quirk system that could be used to fine tune any mech they want to be exactly how they want it to be. Really I don't like thinking much on the many examples of mismanagement PGI has had over the years, lots of wasted potential.

[UnKnownPlayer]

I preferred quirks when they made specific chassis do something really well, there was always a counter meta, the problem was that people didnt look for it.
BLR-1G range on ERLL? - get close and brawl on those maps, their DPS sucked.
ASN-21 in scouting - I called ice ferret ERML kiting, got laughed at, then it happened.

Sometimes the balance issue isn't in the numbers but in the community and the willingness to adapt.

I don't play QP much because I find it boring and lacking depth but in FP I feel like the balance is in the best place that it has been for a LONG time and matches are fairly even, mostly determined by team work and strategy.

The large alphas are a problem when you are up against organised opponents who focus properly, otherwise it's about individual skill, twisting, managing damage and build optimisation. The counter to large alphas is usually speed and heat management, make them miss, make them pay for it, like boxing.

I'm not sure that in the current position of the game ghost heat needs addressing too much. The thing that DOES need addressing is the boating of the smaller weapons with multi-hardpoint lighter mechs e.g. piranha, the upcoming flee etc. These combine the speed / alpha counter with high DPS and no heat. In this situation some kind of mechanic is needed to reduce their effectiveness but I don't know if a ghost heat or energy draw system is the answer, maybe it's altering the chassis hardpoints as the weapons themselves in small numbers are re-markedly well balanced.

[Revis Volek]

El Bandito, on 12 June 2018 - 04:11 AM, said:

I think reduced range and increased spread will add unnecessary info on top of cap limit people have to memorize, especially since the effect is dynamic, and depends on the alpha numbers. To that effect, I personally proposed forced chain-fire as alternative penalty for going over the cap limit. Since the FCF effect is automatic, only new info people have to memorize is the cap limit itself. Simple.

Forced Chain fire would be fine if PGI could code and I could ALSO chain fire WEAPONS GROUPS not just individual weapons.

[LordNothing]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 13 June 2018 - 01:48 PM, said:

I always wondered why PGI was so into HUGE SWEEPING BLANKET NERFS when they had already put inplace a huge quirk system that could be used to fine tune any mech they want to be exactly how they want it to be. Really I don't like thinking much on the many examples of mismanagement PGI has had over the years, lots of wasted potential.

the systems are all there they just dont leverage them enough. if pgi backed off, bailed on the game, and released the server side so people could roll their own servers, modders would have all the major problems fixed in a week.

[El Bandito]

Revis Volek, on 13 June 2018 - 03:00 PM, said:

Forced Chain fire would be fine if PGI could code and I could ALSO chain fire WEAPONS GROUPS not just individual weapons.

Yep, I think the FCF should chain-fire the weapons in groups that is within the damage cap limit. That way it will even help out people that do not/cannot use macros.

[evilauthor]

Revis Volek, on 13 June 2018 - 03:00 PM, said:

Forced Chain fire would be fine if PGI could code and I could ALSO chain fire WEAPONS GROUPS not just individual weapons.

The simplest way to force Chain Fire is to just remove Group Fire entirely. That's what? A few lines of code? Just set the default fire mode to chain fire and disable the ability to toggle Group Fire.

Being able to chain fire groups? Now THAT sounds OP.

[Cato Zilks]

Kalimaster, on 13 June 2018 - 11:02 AM, said:

Can't we just find ways of Making Mechs Better instead of going NERF BALL on Everything.

That is what Tarogato and friends are trying to do. However, that does not meet with PGI's desire to increase TTK. If you don't think TTK or raw alphas need an adjustment, then go make an alt account and watch the amount of standing still that happens in tier 5. Now imagine what you could do with a Deathstrike. Honestly, I bet you could kill 12 mechs with only 12 alphas. Their goal is to slow the game down a bit to help keep lower tiered players in the game longer.

So, knowing that the nerfball is coming, we can either post angry things at them or try and help meet their goals for their game in a way we find less sucky than a mass expansion of ghost heat.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 13 June 2018 - 08:14 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

El Bandito, on 12 June 2018 - 05:58 PM, said:

And that's absolutely fine. Damage, or survival, people should make their choice accordingly. Just no absurd amount of alphas that can be gamed at close range.

But here is the problem, the game (in every mode) rewards damage before all else. Torso twisting is going to lose out and will become devalued by the game's incentive structure. This will in term make brawling just about impossible and will increase the value of ranged trading.

The reason we have torso twisting is because of the ability to alpha and then shield while your weapons cooldown. It allows exposed mechs take more damage while getting their damage out. Here is a great clan brawler https://mwo.smurfy-n...b#i=454&l=stock that will be absolute **** in FCF. With the ~30 pt cap PGI wants, this guy is going to have 3 firing groups. Id mush prefer we gave this pilot the option to dish all that damage out with terrible spread because it still incentives good playing habits like torso twisting while not killing mechs as quickly.

[Kiroshima]

So like, why not just implement the heat penalty table from Battletech, that would appropriately hurt high alpha/high heat builds on its own. Then just unnerf most of the weapons. If people want to high alpha (minus Gauss which has a long cooldown, can explode, etc) they get speed and convergeance/accuracy/camera shake penalties while cooling (the lowest accuracy nerf in table top occurs at 16% heat btw).

This also opens up counter poke since taking high heat alphas will lower your speed significantly.

[El Bandito]

Cato Zilks, on 13 June 2018 - 08:29 PM, said:

But here is the problem, the game (in every mode) rewards damage before all else. Torso twisting is going to lose out and will become devalued by the game's incentive structure. This will in term make brawling just about impossible and will increase the value of ranged trading.

The reason we have torso twisting is because of the ability to alpha and then shield while your weapons cooldown. It allows exposed mechs take more damage while getting their damage out. Here is a great clan brawler https://mwo.smurfy-n...b#i=454&l=stock that will be absolute **** in FCF. With the ~30 pt cap PGI wants, this guy is going to have 3 firing groups. Id mush prefer we gave this pilot the option to dish all that damage out with terrible spread because it still incentives good playing habits like torso twisting while not killing mechs as quickly.

Except you are in error in thinking that I, or even PGI want all weapons to have the same 30 cap. Just like GH, all weapons will have different cap, especially for spread weapons. Bottom line is, Ghost Heat is not cutting it--people simply alpha and take the penalty--especially since damage penalty is almost negligible when shut down. FCF will literally force them to cut down their alpha, with no loopholes.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 June 2018 - 09:35 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

@El Bandito, would you allow a 68pt spread alpha like that of the Orion champ?

Edited by Cato Zilks, 14 June 2018 - 01:15 AM.

[Khobai]

Im convinced a big part of the problem is the idiotic skirmish gamemode. if we had a proper gamemode we wouldnt need damage caps in the first place.

The TTK problems wouldnt exist if PGI just replaced skirmish with a more resilient gamemode, one with ticket based respawns, forward bases, mech repair bays, etc... because it wouldnt matter how fast you died if you could just hop into another mech. And winning games would become more strategic overall.

Skirmish is an inherently flawed gamemode because all it takes is one or two bad players in assaults to basically throw the game so your team cant win. Theres no resilience built-in to the gamemode for teams to recover from stupid. Skirmish is fine for premade teams but for PUGs its completely awful and should not be the main gamemode.

Edited by Khobai, 14 June 2018 - 02:01 AM.

[Cato Zilks]

Khobai, on 14 June 2018 - 01:54 AM, said:

Im convinced a big part of the problem is the idiotic skirmish gamemode. if we had a proper gamemode we wouldnt need damage caps in the first place.

The TTK problems wouldnt exist if PGI just replaced skirmish with a more resilient gamemode, one with ticket based respawns, forward bases, mech repair bays, etc... because it wouldnt matter how fast you died if you could just hop into another mech. And winning games would become more strategic overall.

Skirmish is an inherently flawed gamemode because all it takes is one or two bad players in assaults to basically throw the game so your team cant win. Theres no resilience built-in to the gamemode for teams to recover from stupid. Skirmish is fine for premade teams but for PUGs its completely awful and should not be the main gamemode.

Skirm isnt going anywhere in a game about fighting in stompy battle mechs

[Prototelis]

They should just lower dissipation following large alphas.

Make it riskier without forcing you to immediately take return fire.

[Cato Zilks]

@Prototelis, that is not going to stop the Deathstrike build that PGI sees as a core problem. This: http://mech.nav-alph...#veEkxS_MCII-DS is still doing 94 damage @ 400m+. The solution either needs to lower the damage output or make the mechs divide the firing into smaller blasts.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Cato Zilks, on 14 June 2018 - 04:29 PM, said:

@Prototelis, that is not going to stop the Deathstrike build that PGI sees as a core problem. This: http://mech.nav-alph...#veEkxS_MCII-DS is still doing 94 damage @ 400m+. The solution either needs to lower the damage output or make the mechs divide the firing into smaller blasts.

Prototelis is suggesting a nerf that would allow the Deathstrike to maintain its playstyle of high alpha based builds but make it extremely vulnerable to return fire. Its a really good suggestion actually if you want to nerf it. If the Deathstrike has problems cooling off after firing as the heat raises then enemies can push up on it even easier than they can now, considering it takes about 10-15 seconds for it to fire a second shot currently, a nerf to the cooling when running high heat would mean it would take like 20+ seconds to fire a second shot, which at this point the build itself would likely not be used and people would move into lower damage alphas that put out more total and precise damage. It would work decently in quick play situations where there is nobody taking advantage of such a huge opening, but would be even more dead than it already is in comp play (note how assaults use either ERLL or ERPPC there or are ballistics boats, as high alpha laser vomit outside of the Hunchback IIC wasn't even seen in the finals).

Leaves mechs that have high tonnage able to still throw gauss in with the lasers for higher alphas while the heavies and mediums would move down to 42-66 damage builds with MPL and LPL, which would be around equal in weight, damage, range, and duration to IS ERML+LL builds, having slightly higher weight and damage, IS still having more damage per ton.

Alternative being CERLL boating builds such as the quad ERLL hellbringer/ebonjag/hunchbackIIC.



For real though, all I see nerfs to ERML and HLL doing is forcing Clan to move over to MPL+LPL based builds which are pretty much carbon copy of the IS laservomit builds but on mechs without the durability quirks and weapon quirks. This is kinda the issue, Clans rely almost entirely on their current high alpha builds, or more specifically the CERML, since their other stuff is so nerfed that if we take out the Clan laser vomit then they are just inferior to IS at everything, except maybe sorta equal at LRM boating.

Note that even just moving the CERML from 7 damage to 6 is nearly a 15% change in its firepower, some decent buffs to cooldowns, durations, and heat would be required to be simultaneously added if the CERML was to remain viable outside of alpha roles and instead moved onto skirmishing roles. I am doubtful of PGI properly adding in things to keep it viable after the nerf of the CSPL that took 33% of the firepower and 25% of the DPS.